With delayed or cancelled orders and not enough new opportunities in the pipeline, business owners may think their sales effort is broken.
But contrary to popular belief, the situation is no different that when the economy was booming.
Sales were still broken, but in good times, salespeople and sales managers hide behind all the business that just comes in. Tightening markets have some salespeople making excuses for their lack of performance.
In this economy, businesses have to have the right salespeople – those who will sell versus those who can sell.
To see positive results:
- Evaluate the entire sales organization, process and systems
- Create a plan to fix the problems and grow revenue
- Determine the investment and ROI of the plan
- Fire, recruit, hire and train as needed
Consult and coach until the company is on track
Choose to address your sales problem and grow your market share now, while your competition is hunkering down.
To quote Charles Darwin, "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."
Oliver Connolly is CEO of Washougal-based C Level Strategic. He can be contacted at oliver@clevelstrategic.com
